*Inline* buttons that use expanding images as background?

[mrbean99]

I've been using the following method for creating buttons with exmapding image backgrounds:

a.button {
    background: transparent url('bg_button_a.gif') no-repeat scroll top right;
    color: #FFF;
    display: block;
    float: left;
    font: bold 13px arial, sans-serif;
	text-align:center;
    height: 32px;
    margin-right: 0px;
    padding-right: 18px;
    text-decoration: none;
}

a.button span {
    background: transparent url('bg_button_span.gif') no-repeat;
    display: block;
    line-height: 22px;
    padding: 5px 0 5px 18px;
}

And then to render the button I use:

<a class="button" href="#" onclick="this.blur();"><span>Select</span></a>

However as you can see this requires the button to be a block element that has to float left or right.

You can see an example of the button here .

Is there a way to have the button appear as an inline element instead while maintaining the same appearance?